Sales teams need to embrace social selling to engage with modern buyers. As buyers now research options online before contacting sales, reps must establish themselves as experts on social media. They should provide valuable content to prospects without overtly selling. Monitoring social channels allows reps to identify buying signals and opportunities to engage prospects. The goal is to build relationships and be seen as a helpful resource rather than just trying to make a sale.
Not too long ago, Sales success was the result of a (rather mystical) combination of networking, people skills, intuition, and good ol’ cold calling.
But the advancement in enterprise technology over the past two decades has changed all that, especially in the B2B environment. Today, networking takes place online, technical skills are becoming more valuable than people skills, data has replaced the ‘hunch’, and automation is threatening to shrink the job market.
But while technology seems to have made selling harder, it has certainly made buying easier. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what Sales and Marketing are trying to do.
Luckily, Sales professionals are known for their ability to adapt. The Sales department is often the first in a business to embrace new technology, find better ways of doing things, and cut unnecessary tasks.
It was Sales, after all, who first embraced cloud technology (CRM was the first viable cloud application for business). And Sales who played a huge role in the consumerization of IT, by insisting on bringing their own devices to work.
The internet, SEO and ferocious content marketing have put a wealth of information at the buyer’ fingertips. And in many cases, have made Sales all but redundant until the final stages of the buying process.
Now, Sales needs to lead the charge once again – accepting the changes that technology brings, and making the most of their new situation.
To find out how our proposal management software is a necessity for a sales professional of the future visit our website for more info: https://www.qorusdocs.com/proposal-software
Therese Jerrard, a gifted sales trainer at Deluxe Corp, gives a presentation that has great value for Small Business Sales – regardless of your comfort with selling or your type of business.
1) The document discusses how sales professionals must adapt to changes in the sales environment where buyers are now more educated and complete most of their purchase journey online before engaging with sales.
2) It highlights how sales professionals need to embrace new communication tools like social media to engage with customers where they are already conducting online research.
3) Key points discussed are the rise of inbound sales over outbound cold calling due to educated buyers, the importance of building an online brand and network on LinkedIn to find and engage prospects, and how sales professionals must understand buyer psychology and target the "old brain" to build rapport and trust.
Improve Sales Productivity with Digital Sales CoverageMarketBridge
Customers now spend significantly more time doing on-line research, they expect to be served up content aligned to their buying process and on their time frames.
As a result, sales productivity is suffering, with an estimated 67% of sales reps not meeting their quotas, mainly due to a lack of digital sales coverage.
In this whitepaper we outline the 5 steps required to implement digital sales coverage
The ultimate guide_getting_started_with_social_selling (1)David Blake
This document provides guidance on implementing social selling across sales and marketing teams. It discusses how digital disruption has changed buyer behavior and the sales process. It then provides case studies of companies that have successfully adopted social selling, highlighting benefits like increased revenue and improved lead generation. The document also provides specific recommendations for how sales and marketing can operationalize social selling, such as empowering the sales team through content and tracking engagement. The overall message is that social selling requires aligning sales and marketing teams and changing processes to adapt to today's digital landscape.
This document outlines 10 key marketing trends for 2016 and provides ideas for delivering exceptional customer experiences. It discusses how cognitive technologies will change how businesses engage with customers by understanding them on deeper levels. It also emphasizes the importance of delivering connected customer experiences across channels to meet rising customer expectations. Additionally, it explores how retargeting will reach new levels of sophistication by being more personalized and context-aware across multiple channels. The document also examines how social media and automation will combine to improve the customer journey, and how video will become a more prominent part of marketing strategies.
Not too long ago, Sales success was the result of a (rather mystical) combination of networking, people skills, intuition, and good ol’ cold calling.
But the advancement in enterprise technology over the past two decades has changed all that, especially in the B2B environment. Today, networking takes place online, technical skills are becoming more valuable than people skills, data has replaced the ‘hunch’, and automation is threatening to shrink the job market.
But while technology seems to have made selling harder, it has certainly made buying easier. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what Sales and Marketing are trying to do.
Luckily, Sales professionals are known for their ability to adapt. The Sales department is often the first in a business to embrace new technology, find better ways of doing things, and cut unnecessary tasks.
It was Sales, after all, who first embraced cloud technology (CRM was the first viable cloud application for business). And Sales who played a huge role in the consumerization of IT, by insisting on bringing their own devices to work.
The internet, SEO and ferocious content marketing have put a wealth of information at the buyer’ fingertips. And in many cases, have made Sales all but redundant until the final stages of the buying process.
Now, Sales needs to lead the charge once again – accepting the changes that technology brings, and making the most of their new situation.
To find out how our proposal management software is a necessity for a sales professional of the future visit our website for more info: https://www.qorusdocs.com/proposal-software
Therese Jerrard, a gifted sales trainer at Deluxe Corp, gives a presentation that has great value for Small Business Sales – regardless of your comfort with selling or your type of business.
1) The document discusses how sales professionals must adapt to changes in the sales environment where buyers are now more educated and complete most of their purchase journey online before engaging with sales.
2) It highlights how sales professionals need to embrace new communication tools like social media to engage with customers where they are already conducting online research.
3) Key points discussed are the rise of inbound sales over outbound cold calling due to educated buyers, the importance of building an online brand and network on LinkedIn to find and engage prospects, and how sales professionals must understand buyer psychology and target the "old brain" to build rapport and trust.
Improve Sales Productivity with Digital Sales CoverageMarketBridge
Customers now spend significantly more time doing on-line research, they expect to be served up content aligned to their buying process and on their time frames.
As a result, sales productivity is suffering, with an estimated 67% of sales reps not meeting their quotas, mainly due to a lack of digital sales coverage.
In this whitepaper we outline the 5 steps required to implement digital sales coverage
The ultimate guide_getting_started_with_social_selling (1)David Blake
This document provides guidance on implementing social selling across sales and marketing teams. It discusses how digital disruption has changed buyer behavior and the sales process. It then provides case studies of companies that have successfully adopted social selling, highlighting benefits like increased revenue and improved lead generation. The document also provides specific recommendations for how sales and marketing can operationalize social selling, such as empowering the sales team through content and tracking engagement. The overall message is that social selling requires aligning sales and marketing teams and changing processes to adapt to today's digital landscape.
This document outlines 10 key marketing trends for 2016 and provides ideas for delivering exceptional customer experiences. It discusses how cognitive technologies will change how businesses engage with customers by understanding them on deeper levels. It also emphasizes the importance of delivering connected customer experiences across channels to meet rising customer expectations. Additionally, it explores how retargeting will reach new levels of sophistication by being more personalized and context-aware across multiple channels. The document also examines how social media and automation will combine to improve the customer journey, and how video will become a more prominent part of marketing strategies.
The survey of 511 salespeople found that 72.6% of salespeople using social media as part of their selling process exceeded their quotas 23% more than peers not using social. 54% tracked deals back to social media use. Top reasons for social media use were networking, prospecting, and research. LinkedIn was the top social site used. 75% received no training, which may explain why 21.7% did not use social media due to not understanding it. Salespeople spent 5-10% of time on social media.
The document provides guidance on using intelligent gifting to shorten sales cycles and close more deals. It discusses how gifts can help sales teams increase connections with prospects, reignite stalled deals, and improve overall effectiveness. The document also outlines considerations for an effective gifting strategy, such as understanding goals, audience, timing, and tracking results. It describes how the SwagIQ tool allows sales teams to send gifts from Salesforce at opportune times to boost sales.
How to help your Sales with social media to engage with your customers? – Lau...B2B Marketing Forum
Why marketing and sales should cooperate and be aligned to engage more effectively with customers and increase customer intimacy through Social Media. Business examples will illustrate how alignment and social media enable organizations to communicate with customers at the right time, with the right message and to the right person.
Here is a very basic Inside Sales Playbook I wrote a couple of years ago for a client which uses the C.H.A.M.P. sales qualification framework instead of the outdated B.A.N.T framework.
Social Selling: Thought Provoking Insights That Go Beyond the Latest TrendsGretchen Lehman
Learn how implementing a b2b social selling strategy can help you increase your close rate by reading Unthink Solution's brand new 24-page guide, Social Selling: Thought Provoking Insights That Go Beyond the Latest Trends to Explain the How and Why of Social Selling.
This document discusses how marketing can adopt principles from Formula One racing to generate sales leads and win business faster. It recommends focusing on attracting customers by understanding their needs, providing relevant content, connecting with customers across all stages of the buying process, and optimizing digital presence so the business can be easily found online. The key is aligning sales and marketing teams to work together, measuring performance at each stage of the customer journey, and continually refining strategies based on data.
This document discusses how Gent Beecham Consulting & Marketing can help organizations grow their membership and partnerships through strategic marketing. It outlines Gent Beecham's services in areas like communications, lead generation, branding, and implementing customized solutions. Examples are provided of projects for trade associations and financial sector clients that involved launching new divisions, websites, and insurance propositions through digital and telemarketing campaigns. The document encourages organizations to book an initial free workshop to explore how Gent Beecham can help them overcome challenges and implement strategies to increase membership and partnerships.
The definitive-guide-to-lead-generationGoWebBola.com
Here are the key points from the chapter:
- A lead is a qualified prospect that is starting to exhibit buying behavior.
- To define a lead, sales and marketing need to agree on demographic and firmographic criteria like title, company size, industry, as well as BANT criteria like budget, authority, need, and timeline.
- Leads should be categorized as Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) or Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) depending on their stage in the buying process.
- Sales and marketing should agree on when leads move from MQLs to SQLs and the process for notifying sales of new leads.
- Service level agreements can be implemented to ensure sales
Marketing analytics a practical guide to improving consumer insights using da...MarketingForum
Available at a lower price from other sellers that may not offer free Prime shipping.
Who is most likely to buy and what is the best way to target them? How can businesses improve strategy without identifying the key influencing factors? The second edition of Marketing Analytics enables marketers and business analysts to leverage predictive techniques to measure and improve marketing performance. By exploring real-world marketing challenges, it provides clear, jargon-free explanations on how to apply different analytical models for each purpose. From targeted list creation and data segmentation, to testing campaign effectiveness, pricing structures and forecasting demand, this book offers a welcome handbook on how statistics, consumer analytics and modelling can be put to optimal use.
The fully revised second edition of Marketing Analytics includes three new chapters on big data analytics, insights and panel regression, including how to collect, separate and analyze big data. All of the advanced tools and techniques for predictive analytics have been updated, translating models such as tobit analysis for customer lifetime value into everyday use. Whether an experienced practitioner or having no prior knowledge, methodologies are simplified to ensure the more complex aspects of data and analytics are fully accessible for any level of application. Complete with downloadable data sets and test bank resources, this book supplies a concrete foundation to optimize marketing analytics for day-to-day business advantage.
How and Why Buyers Buy in 2015 (Psychology, Technology, and B2B Marketing, Oh...Katie Martell
Webinar slides from my presentation with BrightTalk - learn how to market to today's empowered, distracted, stressed out B2B buyer.
To view the recorded on-demand version: http://cintell.net/why-buyers-buy-in-2015-on-demand-webinar-recording/
B2B Lead Generation - Bridge the Divide Between Sales & Marketing3D2B
Generating high-quality leads is the biggest challenge for marketing organizations. Learn how tele-services can bring the human touch to your lead generation efforts.
Syrho M. Lagrosas is a Filipino citizen applying for a customer service position. He has a bachelor's degree in hospitality management and relevant work experience in restaurants and coffee shops. His skills include strong organizational abilities, teamwork, attention to detail, and meeting deadlines. He is also computer literate with skills in food preparation, table setting, and freelance baking. References are available upon request.
Lekan Ahmed is a leadership consultant and founder of Lekan Leadership International. He provides leadership training, coaching, and public speaking workshops. His experience includes serving as Area Director and VP of Education for Toastmasters International, where he helped clubs achieve success through educational programs and membership growth. Previously, Ahmed founded Carrots Trading Ventures to provide educational workshops on investing and mentor youth. He seeks to utilize his diverse experience in leadership development, entrepreneurship, and human resources to help organizations and startups succeed.
Syrho M. Lagrosas is a Filipino citizen applying for a customer service position. He has a bachelor's degree in hospitality management and relevant work experience in restaurants and coffee shops. His skills include strong organizational abilities, teamwork, attention to detail, and experience in commercial cooking, baking, and restaurant operations. He is looking to gain more experience in customer service.
This document is a resume for Jennifer L. Newman, an experienced registered nurse seeking a new position. It lists her contact information, certifications, awards, work history, education, and references. Newman has over 10 years of experience as a registered nurse in various clinical and administrative roles. She has a Bachelor's degree in Nursing, a Master's degree in Nursing with a focus on leadership and management, and is currently pursuing a Nurse Practitioner certificate.
This document discusses the rules of the card game Deals Rummy. It is played with 2-6 players using 2-3 decks of cards. Each player is given a set number of chips based on the number of players, where chips represent points. The objective is to form valid sequences and sets on each deal to use all cards in your hand and have the fewest remaining points. The player with the lowest point total after all deals wins the overall game and the prize pool contributed by the other players.
Pool Rummy is a multiplayer card game that can be played with 2 to 6 players. There are three main formats: 101 Points, 201 Points, and Best of 3. In 101 and 201 Points formats, players accumulate points until they reach 101 or 201 points respectively and are eliminated. In Best of 3, players compete over three rounds and the player with the lowest total points after three rounds wins. The game has specific rules around valid card combinations, scoring points for dropping out early, and determining a winner.
The survey of 511 salespeople found that 72.6% of salespeople using social media as part of their selling process exceeded their quotas 23% more than peers not using social. 54% tracked deals back to social media use. Top reasons for social media use were networking, prospecting, and research. LinkedIn was the top social site used. 75% received no training, which may explain why 21.7% did not use social media due to not understanding it. Salespeople spent 5-10% of time on social media.
The document provides guidance on using intelligent gifting to shorten sales cycles and close more deals. It discusses how gifts can help sales teams increase connections with prospects, reignite stalled deals, and improve overall effectiveness. The document also outlines considerations for an effective gifting strategy, such as understanding goals, audience, timing, and tracking results. It describes how the SwagIQ tool allows sales teams to send gifts from Salesforce at opportune times to boost sales.
How to help your Sales with social media to engage with your customers? – Lau...B2B Marketing Forum
Why marketing and sales should cooperate and be aligned to engage more effectively with customers and increase customer intimacy through Social Media. Business examples will illustrate how alignment and social media enable organizations to communicate with customers at the right time, with the right message and to the right person.
Here is a very basic Inside Sales Playbook I wrote a couple of years ago for a client which uses the C.H.A.M.P. sales qualification framework instead of the outdated B.A.N.T framework.
Social Selling: Thought Provoking Insights That Go Beyond the Latest TrendsGretchen Lehman
Learn how implementing a b2b social selling strategy can help you increase your close rate by reading Unthink Solution's brand new 24-page guide, Social Selling: Thought Provoking Insights That Go Beyond the Latest Trends to Explain the How and Why of Social Selling.
This document discusses how marketing can adopt principles from Formula One racing to generate sales leads and win business faster. It recommends focusing on attracting customers by understanding their needs, providing relevant content, connecting with customers across all stages of the buying process, and optimizing digital presence so the business can be easily found online. The key is aligning sales and marketing teams to work together, measuring performance at each stage of the customer journey, and continually refining strategies based on data.
This document discusses how Gent Beecham Consulting & Marketing can help organizations grow their membership and partnerships through strategic marketing. It outlines Gent Beecham's services in areas like communications, lead generation, branding, and implementing customized solutions. Examples are provided of projects for trade associations and financial sector clients that involved launching new divisions, websites, and insurance propositions through digital and telemarketing campaigns. The document encourages organizations to book an initial free workshop to explore how Gent Beecham can help them overcome challenges and implement strategies to increase membership and partnerships.
The definitive-guide-to-lead-generationGoWebBola.com
Here are the key points from the chapter:
- A lead is a qualified prospect that is starting to exhibit buying behavior.
- To define a lead, sales and marketing need to agree on demographic and firmographic criteria like title, company size, industry, as well as BANT criteria like budget, authority, need, and timeline.
- Leads should be categorized as Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) or Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) depending on their stage in the buying process.
- Sales and marketing should agree on when leads move from MQLs to SQLs and the process for notifying sales of new leads.
- Service level agreements can be implemented to ensure sales
Marketing analytics a practical guide to improving consumer insights using da...MarketingForum
Available at a lower price from other sellers that may not offer free Prime shipping.
Who is most likely to buy and what is the best way to target them? How can businesses improve strategy without identifying the key influencing factors? The second edition of Marketing Analytics enables marketers and business analysts to leverage predictive techniques to measure and improve marketing performance. By exploring real-world marketing challenges, it provides clear, jargon-free explanations on how to apply different analytical models for each purpose. From targeted list creation and data segmentation, to testing campaign effectiveness, pricing structures and forecasting demand, this book offers a welcome handbook on how statistics, consumer analytics and modelling can be put to optimal use.
The fully revised second edition of Marketing Analytics includes three new chapters on big data analytics, insights and panel regression, including how to collect, separate and analyze big data. All of the advanced tools and techniques for predictive analytics have been updated, translating models such as tobit analysis for customer lifetime value into everyday use. Whether an experienced practitioner or having no prior knowledge, methodologies are simplified to ensure the more complex aspects of data and analytics are fully accessible for any level of application. Complete with downloadable data sets and test bank resources, this book supplies a concrete foundation to optimize marketing analytics for day-to-day business advantage.
How and Why Buyers Buy in 2015 (Psychology, Technology, and B2B Marketing, Oh...Katie Martell
Webinar slides from my presentation with BrightTalk - learn how to market to today's empowered, distracted, stressed out B2B buyer.
To view the recorded on-demand version: http://cintell.net/why-buyers-buy-in-2015-on-demand-webinar-recording/
B2B Lead Generation - Bridge the Divide Between Sales & Marketing3D2B
Generating high-quality leads is the biggest challenge for marketing organizations. Learn how tele-services can bring the human touch to your lead generation efforts.
Syrho M. Lagrosas is a Filipino citizen applying for a customer service position. He has a bachelor's degree in hospitality management and relevant work experience in restaurants and coffee shops. His skills include strong organizational abilities, teamwork, attention to detail, and meeting deadlines. He is also computer literate with skills in food preparation, table setting, and freelance baking. References are available upon request.
Lekan Ahmed is a leadership consultant and founder of Lekan Leadership International. He provides leadership training, coaching, and public speaking workshops. His experience includes serving as Area Director and VP of Education for Toastmasters International, where he helped clubs achieve success through educational programs and membership growth. Previously, Ahmed founded Carrots Trading Ventures to provide educational workshops on investing and mentor youth. He seeks to utilize his diverse experience in leadership development, entrepreneurship, and human resources to help organizations and startups succeed.
Syrho M. Lagrosas is a Filipino citizen applying for a customer service position. He has a bachelor's degree in hospitality management and relevant work experience in restaurants and coffee shops. His skills include strong organizational abilities, teamwork, attention to detail, and experience in commercial cooking, baking, and restaurant operations. He is looking to gain more experience in customer service.
This document is a resume for Jennifer L. Newman, an experienced registered nurse seeking a new position. It lists her contact information, certifications, awards, work history, education, and references. Newman has over 10 years of experience as a registered nurse in various clinical and administrative roles. She has a Bachelor's degree in Nursing, a Master's degree in Nursing with a focus on leadership and management, and is currently pursuing a Nurse Practitioner certificate.
This document discusses the rules of the card game Deals Rummy. It is played with 2-6 players using 2-3 decks of cards. Each player is given a set number of chips based on the number of players, where chips represent points. The objective is to form valid sequences and sets on each deal to use all cards in your hand and have the fewest remaining points. The player with the lowest point total after all deals wins the overall game and the prize pool contributed by the other players.
Pool Rummy is a multiplayer card game that can be played with 2 to 6 players. There are three main formats: 101 Points, 201 Points, and Best of 3. In 101 and 201 Points formats, players accumulate points until they reach 101 or 201 points respectively and are eliminated. In Best of 3, players compete over three rounds and the player with the lowest total points after three rounds wins. The game has specific rules around valid card combinations, scoring points for dropping out early, and determining a winner.
The Definitive Guide to Social Selling for LeadersSales for Life
Sales, marketing, and enablement leaders must work together to drive a successful digital transformation within their organization. The transformation involves 6 stages from random social activity to fully integrated sales and marketing teams. Social selling helps restore balance between buyers and sellers by engaging buyers on their terms and viewing sellers as more authentic.
This document summarizes perspectives from various thought leaders on trends in social selling in 2014-2015. Key trends highlighted include: the rise of content marketing and social networks leveling the playing field; social selling tools gaining maturity and a push for ROI metrics; and the need for sales and marketing integration and cultural change among salesforces. Thought leaders predict social selling will go mainstream in 2015 and bring changes to sales training, management, and expectations of sales reps.
Social Selling tips by Top Social Selling Thought LeadersJill Sida
This document provides tips and strategies for using social media effectively for sales and relationship building. It discusses how social selling has evolved with changes in technology and buyer behavior. Prospecting through social media and nurturing relationships online is presented as an important strategy for sales professionals. Building influence, expertise, and trust in one's industry community on social networks like LinkedIn is emphasized as a key foundation for social selling success over time.
8 Steps to Get Sales & Marketing Cranking in UnionHeuvel Marketing
This document provides 8 steps for better aligning sales and marketing efforts. It begins by noting that B2B buyers now conduct extensive independent research online and through peers before engaging with sales. This has changed expectations for sales interactions. It argues that to be successful, sales and marketing must work together to engage prospects throughout the entire buying process rather than just the sales cycle. The first step discussed is to clearly define the ideal customer through buyer personas in order to focus efforts on the most promising leads.
This document provides an overview of social selling and how to implement it effectively. It discusses how social selling can benefit buyers, sales professionals, and marketing professionals. It also provides case studies of companies that have successfully adopted social selling. Key points covered include defining roles for sales and marketing, operationalizing social selling, incentivizing teams, and tracking results. The overall message is that social selling requires aligning sales and marketing goals and changing traditional models to remain effective in today's digital landscape where buyers research online.
LinkedIN Guide to Social Selling Success - Tips from 33 Social Selling ExpertsChris Heffer
Social selling involves using social media to build relationships and fill your sales pipeline. It is important for salespeople to become social sellers and adapt to changing buyer behaviors. Successful social sellers listen to prospects, provide valuable education, and make warm introductions through their social connections. Relationship building on social media takes time but leads to loyal customers through influence and trust.
How to Drive 10X More Leads with Social SellingMohamed Mahdy
This document provides guidance on how sales organizations can implement social selling to drive more leads. It recommends training the sales team on social media use, providing approved content for them to share, and tracking engagement and results. Implementing these seven steps can help sales teams build authority as thought leaders, nurture leads, and ultimately close more deals through social interactions.
Buying 2.0: Accelerating Sales By Making It Easier To BuyDenise Corcoran
This document discusses how to accelerate sales by making it easier for buyers to purchase through a concept called "Buying 2.0". It recommends using new technologies and practices to optimize both online and human interactions to streamline the buying process. Specifically, the document recommends assessing your current sales approach, identifying technologies that can accelerate buying, integrating those tools into your sales process, developing tools to aid the buying process, and ensuring your team adopts the new approach. The goal is to generate more leads, shorten the sales cycle, and increase revenue by making it as simple as possible for buyers.
Successful sales organizations are transforming the way they sell in order to create compelling customer engagements in today's constantly changing environment. To compete, sales teams need to be prepared and insightful with real-time customer insights, collaborative and connected through social and mobile tools, and highly productive with qualified leads and 360-degree customer views. Leading vendors are helping sales teams develop these dynamic characteristics to outsmart competitors and close more deals faster.
I apologize, I do not actually have any first-hand experience with rethinking the relationship between sales and marketing. I am an AI assistant created by Anthropic to be helpful, harmless, and honest.
The definitive-guide-to-lead-generationHyeontaek Lim
This document provides an overview of lead generation strategies and tactics. It discusses how lead generation has evolved with the rise of digital marketing and self-directed buyers. It emphasizes the importance of alignment between sales and marketing in defining what constitutes a lead. Key aspects of defining a lead include demographics, firmographics, and determining budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT). The document also discusses lead scoring, handoff processes, and implementing service level agreements to ensure qualified leads are passed to sales and properly followed up on.
This presentation defines the 5 keys to Sales 2.0 Management success in terms of technology, customer value, and sales team empowerment, and provides a practical blueprint for building and managing high performance Sales 2.0 Machine.
The document discusses how to identify gaps between sales and marketing by creating an assessment framework to analyze past performance, current processes, strategy, and gathering customer feedback. It suggests surveying customers to understand preferences and pain points during the sales process. Identifying these gaps is important for companies to understand shortcomings and set goals to improve sales and marketing alignment.
10 Key Benefits of Working Social for Sales LeadersJim Claussen
Using social/digital platforms like IBM Connections allows sales leaders to more effectively:
1. Provide guidance and direction to remotely located sales teams, which increases focus.
2. Generate more sales opportunities and closed revenue according to studies showing increases of 30% and 20% respectively for engaged sellers.
3. Leverage the collective knowledge of their extended network to better answer questions from clients and their teams.
With more than 2.3 billion active users worldwide, social media has officially gone from a "nice-to-have" to a "must-have" — and not just for consumer-facing companies.
You'll learn:
- Why social is potentially more impactful for B2B than B2C
- The biggest areas of opportunity for B2B social media
- The 3 types of social CMOs
- How to manage expectations and find your internal champions
- Unexpected ways to glean actionable insights from social data
- Real-world use cases and best practices from CMOs just like you
Modern marketing - what's changed and what can we do about it? This guide looks at the most effective B2B marketing strategies in today's business climate.
This document summarizes the responses from various marketing experts who participated in a "mad libs" style game to provide advice on key marketing trends. The experts filled in blanks on topics like the biggest mistakes in marketing automation, underrated marketing strategies, and traits to look for in new marketers. Their responses emphasized the importance of content marketing, customer experience, storytelling skills, and providing useful content to audiences.
Absolutely nothing can enable sales if the hard work of developing a fully supported sales strategy is not done. This whitepaper discusses the importance of developing a strong sales process and provides a roadmap to building one.
This document provides guidance on social selling. It defines social selling as leveraging a professional brand to fill the sales pipeline with the right people, insights, and relationships. The document outlines how social media has changed B2B sales by allowing salespeople to learn more about prospects and build rapport even without face-to-face interactions. It also shares statistics on how social sellers tend to outperform peers who do not use social media for sales. The document provides tips for social sellers, such as focusing on industry trends and using tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to improve workflow and sales performance.
Content based conversation sales for life articleYogesh Bhat
This document provides guidance on how sales, marketing, and enablement teams can work together to increase sales conversations through content. It discusses how the buying journey is now non-linear, with customers researching online before engaging with sales. It emphasizes that content must add value and insight for customers. The roles of each team are also outlined, with marketing responsible for top-of-funnel content, sales customizing this for individual outreach, and enablement supporting bottom-of-funnel needs. Overall, the document stresses the importance of collaboration between these functions to create and share the right content at the right time with customers.
2. 2
A better way to sell: cloud, mobile, social, big data
A…B…C… When we think of the abc’s, perhaps even more so than the popular sales
mantra “always be closing,” we think of getting back to the basics. The alphabet is a
foundational lesson we learn early on and internalize to the point where we hardly even
notice it as we move through our days, no matter how ubiquitous it is on our lives.
In naming our latest ebook, we wanted to convey this deeper message beyond “always
be closing.” From the chalkboard illustration on the title page to our subtitle “the ABC’s
of Sales in the Modern Era,” this ebook is all about finding our way back to the heart of
sales with technology that is helpful without getting in the way.
The sad truth we face with the complexity and pressure in today’s market is a
salesperson can only spend about 22% of their time actually selling1. Even if a
salesperson closes 100% of their deals, they’re only able to do this with less than a
quarter of their time. This is a problem.
So how do we solve it? We need technology that doesn’t waste a salesperson’s time —
that actually helps salespeople do their jobs better, improving their productivity while
enabling them to meet today’s customer expectations and the dramatically different
buying process.
In this ebook, we tackle the issues facing sales today head on, incorporating changes
and developments in the market that your teams need to understand. I’m incredibly
excited not only to introduce this brand new ebook, but also the next generation of
sales productivity from Microsoft.
In the interest of maximizing all of our productivity—let’s get to it!
All my best,
Marie Huwe GM, Marketing, Microsoft Dynamics
@MarieHuwe
1
http://paceproductivity.com/files/How_Sales_Reps_Spend_Their_Time.pdf
3. 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
page 4 Businesses need to let salespeople sell
5 Buyer 2.0: The way people buy has changed
8 Get social—or go home
13 Special guest chapter: Real-world tips for building relationships
and closing more deals on LinkedIn
16 Tell a story that inspires action
18 Get the edge with social insights
22 Connecting in the age of the customer: Harnessing technology
for better selling
26 Insights from the experts
4. 4
LET’S GET DOWN TO IT —
BUSINESSES NEED TO
LET SALESPEOPLE SELL
Companies hire salespeople to drive revenue, but it turns out that the majority of sales
reps spend very little of their time actually doing the jobs they were hired to do. According
to Pace Productivity, just 22% of a typical sales rep’s week is focused on selling.1
Let’s face it—reps can’t close if they’re hamstrung by inefficient processes, left out of the
conversation initiated by marketing, or simply distracted by time-sucking administrative
tasks.
What’s more, considering that sales reps are often not looped in until buyers are two-thirds
of the way though the decision-making process, sales productivity matters now more than
ever. In other words, salespeople need to free up as much of their time as possible to focus
on selling.
So how can organizations set their sales teams up to succeed? Give them the tools,
guidance and support they need to do what they do best: sell. In this eBook , we’ll
explore ways to do just that, with a focus on the trends shaping today’s buying—and
selling—process:
• Buyer 2.0: The way people buy has changed
• How sales reps can transform from solution providers to trusted advisors
• The role of content and conversations in today’s buying and selling process
• Why and how sales reps need to tap into data for smarter selling
• The tools and technology that help sales reps get more done faster and better
Two key dynamics influence the
productivity of today’s sales teams:
• Sales reps lack the right skills to be
effective in this new buyer-driven
economy
• Buyers’ expectations and companies’
selling processes are not aligned
– Tiffani Bova
VP and Distinguished Analyst, Gartner
1
http://paceproductivity.com/files/How_Sales_Reps_Spend_Their_Time.pdf
Typical Sales Reps %
of Weekly Hours
Lunch Breaks
Travel
Admin
Service
Order
Processing
13%
6%
4% 10%
23%
10%
12%
Misc. Planning
Selling
22%
5. 5
BUYER 2.0
THE WAY PEOPLE BUY
HAS CHANGED
Today, sales teams must sell to self-empowered, highly informed “super” buyers. These
potential customers are incredibly savvy when it comes to tracking down information about
possible vendors and solutions and vetting their options. They are getting information
about companies and their products from an unprecedented number of sources: Internet
searches, company websites, their social network (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter), their
professional communities, news outlets—you name it!
Put simply, today’s buyers can access virtually any information, easily compare options, and
instantly validate their decisions with the click of a mouse or touch on a screen.
Buyers no longer want to be sold to
Along the way, most buyers prefer to keep sales reps at arm’s length as long as possible. Who
can blame them? No one wants a hard sell if they can avoid it. As a result, because buyers are
more in control of accessing information, they no longer depend on sales reps to narrow down
their options and make a shortlist.
“Today, with buyers now controlling the majority of
the front end of the sales process, sellers must
learn to facilitate a buying process—not conduct
a sales process.”
– Colleen Francis, Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions
7. 7
Digital signals are key
This sea change in buying has altered the nature of engagement and ways that
organizations interact with buyers. That’s not to say traditional interactions—such as those
via email, on the phone or in person—are dead. It does mean, however, that cold calls
and unsolicited emails are less effective than ever at sparking a conversation with potential
customers.
Just look at the stats: a cold call is only 3% effective, according to an IBM preference study.1
Now compare that to reaching out via a LinkedIn Inmail—recipients are likely to respond to
those outreaches 67% of the time.2
So what does this mean for today’s sales reps?
Social buying signals are an
opportunity for sales to listen to
social conversations and pick up on
trends or indicators. When people send
the signal they’re looking for something,
dissatisfied with their current solution, or
need more information on a topic, that’s
an opportunity for a seller to engage.
Pay close and constant attention to signals being
given off by buyers in the digital realm. Then
reach out and engage prospects on these new
channels.
BUYER 2.0
THE WAY PEOPLE BUY
HAS CHANGED
1
http://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/prospecting-tool/cold-calling-tips.html
2
http://www.gmigroup.be/cms/uploads/Presentaties/Klantendag%202013/GMI%20Dynamics%20CRM%202.pdf
8. 8
GET SOCIAL
OR GO HOME
At the end of the day, the fundamentals of selling haven’t changed: what makes a great
sales rep is the ability to establish and nurture relationships and build trust. In today’s world,
sales pros can tap into social as a tool that extends those natural abilities, and they’d better
do so sooner than later. Reps ignoring social as a source of their next opportunities will find
themselves left out of every deal.
There’s no doubt about it: social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are
incredibly valuable tools for making connections and nurturing business relationships, but
it’s not that easy. Sales reps need a way to tame the firehose, so to speak. They need tools
that help them separate true social buying signals and important moments from social
noise (more about those tools later in this eBook). Otherwise, they end up wasting valuable
time, time they could be spending selling.
Despite these challenges, now that buyers are moving along the path to purchase without
involving sales, it’s more important than ever for reps to pay attention to these channels.
Remember, by the time buyers reach out, they’ve downloaded competitors’ eBooks, read
online reviews, and may have even asked members of a LinkedIn group for advice on the
products or services they’re considering.
“When a seller can’t or doesn’t engage early with the right people, more often than not,
they have lost the deal before they even started.” – Ryan Blakely, Dynamics Business
Development Manager, Microsoft
What’s a sales rep to do? How can organizations get a foot in the door, so to speak, without
spending countless hours on social?
Ditch overt sales pitches
The answer is to adopt the principles of social selling. The Aberdeen Group defines social
selling as the utilization one of three techniques1
, which include:
• Social Collaboration: Sharing information internally or with partners to pool
knowledge on how to generate more leads and sales
• External Listening: The gathering and interpreting of information or content produced
by clients and prospects
• External Participation: Providing prospects with relevant and helpful content or
information to build relationships and positively impact future buying decisions
However, let’s be clear: the term social selling is misleading. In the social realm, selling
is a no-no. Social is about connecting, informing, and helping. This is how today’s reps
influence the buying process before buyers even engage them on a deal.
The amount of respondents who connected
directly with potential solution providers via
social networking channels increased by
more than 57%.
– DemandGen Report, The 2014 B2B Buyer
Behavior Survey
“Sales reps need to do research to have a
meaningful interaction with a prospect or
customer. Social insights are typically best
because they are real time and provide
invaluable insight into your prospect’s
point of view and what is important to them
at that given time.”
– Craig Rosenberg, Co-founder, TOPO
Think about “social selling” as networking
or building relationships. It’s not about
making a quick sale so avoid anything that
gives the impression you’re selling.
According to Corporate Visions, 74% of
buyers choose the company that was
FIRST to add value.1
1
http://www.aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/8256/RB-social-selling-intelligence.aspx
1
SAVO, Techniques of Social Selling: Just Do It!, 2014,
http://www.slideshare.net/SAVO_Group/techniques-
ofsocial- selling-just-do-it-sales-for-life
9. 9
1
Sales Benchmark Index, How to Make Your Number in 2014
2
Sales Benchmark Index, How to Make Your Number in 2014
79% of sales people achieving quota
used social selling techniques. Only 15%
of those who didn’t use social selling
achieved quota.1
In fact, social selling was the #1 way
for sales reps to generate their own leads
in 2013.2
10. 10
GET SOCIAL
OR GO HOME (CONT’D)
Become an expert in your industry
According to Ryan Blakely, Dynamics Business Development Manager at Microsoft, the
key to successfully engaging buyer 2.0 is the following: deliver a steady flow of expertise,
insights, and relevant content that nurtures, teaches and influences throughout the buyer’s
journey. When done well, buyers see the sales rep as a partner and valuable asset to
longterm success.
The best reps establish thought leadership on social channels to become the trusted expert
buyers seek out. As Colleen Francis of Engage Selling Solutions explains, “Today, no one
buys from salespeople—they only buy from experts. And buyers are actively searching for
thought leaders and experts daily.” Kendra Lee, author of Selling Against the Goal: How
Corporate Sales Professionals Generate the Leads they Need, continues by saying “To
distinguish themselves from the competition, sales reps need to inspire trust in prospects.”
Succeeding in this way requires a disciplined focus on understanding as much as possible
about buyers’ pressing concerns and then sharing useful and relevant information.
Furthermore, until prospective customers indicate otherwise, the information should not be
about the company or its offerings. Remember—if buyers even pick up a whiff of someone
trying to sell to them, they’ll likely close the door to any interactions. On the other hand,
the sales reps that deliver selfless value often make the short list…and in many cases, close
the deal.
“Without having a way to monitor your target market
and identify buying signals, you’re missing out. CRM
intelligence arms reps with accurate data, buying
signals and events, and connections for getting
an intro.”
– Brian Kelly, CMO, InsideView
11. 11
GET SOCIAL
OR GO HOME (CONT’D)
Use digital signals to jump-start interactions
Effective sales reps monitor and engage with prospective buyers in social channels.
Doing so lets them pick up on signals that give them a reason to reach out or jump
into a conversation. In other words, it’s a foot in the door early in the buying cycle. The
trigger could be something personal such as a key contact receiving a promotion or
celebrating a birthday. It could also be something indicating when a contact is primed
for purchase, such as her company receiving funding or a key executive spearheading
a new initiative.
To support their reps, a growing number of marketing and sales leaders are offering
their sales team listening tools, content libraries, and social publishing tools. These
make it easy to stay top of mind and provide thought leadership, as well as real-
world advice that actually helps their prospects do their jobs better. Increasingly these
marketing and sales leaders are also partnering to provide social insights on leads,
contacts, and accounts, freeing sales teams to focus more on what matters rather than
noodling with their latest tweet.
Always be connecting
Jill Rowley, an incredible social selling thought leader (see page 37 for her complete
interview), called us out on the title of this eBook. She believes that when it comes to
social selling, it’s not “Always be Closing”—it’s “Always Be Connecting.” As she says, “The
Modern Sales Professional uses social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter to find, listen,
relate, connect, engage and amplify her buyer, the buying committee and their sphere
of influence.” We could not agree more with this. While it may not be possible or even
smart to connect with everyone in a company on social channels, connecting socially
should be a key focus for any organization’s top accounts. It’s important to remember
not to connect just for connecting’s sake. This isn’t the equivalent of building up a
Rolodex—it’s about building relationships.
“Through social, sales can identify the best
message, the best communication vehicle,
uncover referrals… the list goes on. And when
prospects “go dark,” social selling can bring
them back.”
– Kendra Lee, author of Selling Against the
Goal: How Corporate Sales Professionals
Generate the Leads they Need
“When the empowered buyer is ready to
reach out and talk, they often feel as if they
have to step back in the buying process to
get on the same page as sales.”
– Tifffani Bova, VP and Distinguished
Analyst, Gartner
TIP: Get your entire company to follow your top ten prospects on Twitter and LinkedIn.
These potential buyers will notice.
12. 12
GET SOCIAL
OR GO HOME (CONT’D)
The smartest reps are extremely targeted in who they reach out to (another tip from
Jill Rowley). They also take the time to research that person to give context as to why
they want to connect. Perhaps most importantly, they offer free, valuable insights or
advice. According to Rowley, “The Modern Sales Professional doesn’t sell; she serves.
She doesn’t sell; she helps. She doesn’t sell; she facilitates a buying process.” Doing so
gets a buyer’s attention and quickly dispels the notion that the rep is all about making
a quick sale.
In fact, this advisory approach boosts the likelihood that prospects will share their
contact information or agree to a demo, for example. As Colleen Stanley, founder
and president of SalesLeadership, Inc., says, “Most people view salespeople as self-
centered, Lone-Ranger types. The best salespeople I know are generous. Generous
people enjoy the law of reciprocity. When you give, you get.” Barbara Giamanco,
president of Social Centered Selling and co-author of “The New Handshake: Sales
Meets Social Media,” agrees. “…the focus is not on your company or what you sell, it is
in offering something that is educational. Giving is more important than getting. Giving
first leads to more opportunities over time.”
Key takeaways
• Give your sales team social insights on their leads, contacts, and accounts.
• Provide reps with content and tools that makes it easy for them to be productive
on social.
• Make social connections on LinkedIn and Twitter a key part of the process workflow
for top accounts.
TIP: Before reaching out to someone on LinkedIn with a “cold connect”, take a few minutes
to discover similarities or recent developments, such as promotions or job changes. A little
can go a long way here and in the long run you’ll be way more productive making a few
smart connections than hundreds of meaningless ones.
TIP: To make sure sales reps effectively engage in social “selling,” train them on the tools
and processes and help them build and maintain strong social media presences.
13. 13
Special Guest Chapter
Real-world tips for building
relationships and closing more
deals on LinkedIn.
by Jason Miller, Senior Content Marketing Manager, LinkedIn
@JasonMillerCA
Social Selling is the way forward for modern-day digital
sales reps that are looking to exceed their quota and
become a sales linchpin within their organization. In this
world where relationships are the new currency, the sales
folks with the best networks will become rock stars. Why?
Because they’ll be the ones who connect with and glean
insights about decision makers via social channels to move
deals along.
So how can a sales professional best utilize LinkedIn—the
world’s largest professional network—for social selling? It
boils down to three things:
1. Build your network on LinkedIn
2. Identify prospects
3. Engage with them
14. 4
3
2
1
14
Special Guest Chapter (Cont’d)
by Jason Miller, Senior Content Marketing Manager, LinkedIn
@JasonMillerCA
Here are 10 ways that best-in-class sales teams
use bleeding-edge Social Selling techniques on
LinkedIn to be more productive:
Lay the foundation with a solid company page.
Once companies begin implementing a social selling strategy, it’s vital to establish a
“home base” on LinkedIn for messaging, content, products/services, and campaigns.
Post helpful, targeted content consistently, and encourage current customers to follow
the company’s page. When an extra push is needed, try using a Sponsored Update to
reach beyond the company’s initial following.
The “who’s viewed your profile” play.
“Funnelholic” and Social Selling expert Craig Rosenberg uses this technique. He says,
“On LinkedIn – the prospect clicks on YOU. You aren’t ‘nameless sales guy x calling me
again’—they looked at your profile. It’s a prime opportunity to talk to potential buyers.
Isn’t that better than ‘checking in’? They see your face, glance
Use InMail for personalized emails.
Matt Heinz from Heinz Marketing recommends “taking three minutes to learn three
things about someone before reaching out to them,” and I absolutely agree. Reps
should leverage the insights they gather from profiles and other social networks to
indicate they’ve done research on the person they’re connecting with. For example,
reference a blog post or speech given by that person.
Organize prospecting with LinkedIn contacts.
With LinkedIn contacts, sales pros can combine their address books, emails and
calendars, and keep them up to date in one central place. LinkedIn will automatically
pull in the details of past conversations and meetings, and add those details directly
into the prospect’s profile. Reps can take it a step further by utilizing Tags, Notes and
Reminder features as well.
15. 15
8
10
7
9
6
5
Special Guest Chapter (Cont’d)
by Jason Miller, Senior Content Marketing Manager, LinkedIn
@JasonMillerCA
Leverage the power of LinkedIn Groups.
LinkedIn Groups are a great way to build a personal brand, but they’re also terrific for
reaching out to group members as if they were a first-degree connection. In addition,
group members are also able to view the profiles of other members of the same group
without being connected.
Give wings to LinkedIn Updates.
When reps post an update to LinkedIn, with a check of a box they can easily syndicate
that update to share it with their Twitter followers as well. Just select the Public + Twitter
option in the Share With dropdown before clicking Share in the LinkedIn update
composer.
Leverage @mentions in Status Updates.
In 2013, LinkedIn rolled out the ability to tag or @mention other users and companies
in status updates—much like the way it works on Facebook and Twitter. Want another
LinkedIn user or company to see a status update? Include the @ symbol immediately
followed by the user’s/company’s name in the update. That user or company will get
alerted about the mention, and their name will also link to their profile/page in the
status update itself.
Get employees in on the discussion.
LinkedIn isn’t just for marketing and sales folks. In fact it gives everyone in an
organization a path to become a thought leader and establish their personal brands.
Consider third-party apps like GaggleAMP and Addvocate to empower employees to
share the company’s most important content with their networks.
Apply the 4-1-1 Rule.
The 4-1-1 Rule, coined by Tippingpoint Labs and Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing
Institute, states:
“For every one self-serving tweet, you should retweet one relevant tweet and most
importantly share four pieces of relevant content written by others.”
It’s easy to apply this simple rule to activities on Personal Profiles and LinkedIn company
page. For social selling, the 4-1-1 Rule is particularly useful when applied to building
relationships with prospective customers. This helps reps foster an informative dialogue
regularly and also keeps them at the forefront of prospects’ minds as they move
through the buying process. As Jay Baer says, “Sell something, get a customer for a day.
Help someone, get a customer for life.”
Take a cue from the marketing team.
Reach out to the folks on the company’s social, content and PR teams as they are likely
seasoned pros at posting great content and engaging within social. For example there
are many parallels between social selling and influencer/ customer marketing. These
teams can likely provide tips around the messaging and content that resonates with the
company’s target audience. Sales reps can then apply that strategy to interactions with
their prospects.
16. 16
We’ve already spelled out that sales reps need to be seen as a valuable resource for buyers,
and we’ve outlined how they can do that by establishing themselves as the go-to-resource
for all the information a buyer would need about top-of-mind issues, the latest industry
trends and relevant solutions. By cutting through all the clutter and funneling only the most
relevant content to prospects, reps further their role as a trusted advisor.
But let’s not forget the job they were hired to do—sales pros need to effectively sell their
company’s product or service. Getting there means putting prospects and customers at the
center of the vision they’re painting for them, and educating and entertaining them as they
lead them down the path to purchase. It means engaging buyers with a story that compels
them to act, one that answers the questions: Why do anything? Why now? Why us?
According to Brian Kelly of InsideView, “Thought leadership can contribute significantly to
all three by informing the market of your value, instilling urgency and differentiating over
the competition.”
Make the buyer the hero of the story
Julie Hansen, Founder of Performance Sales and Training, picks up on that thread, saying
effective storytelling can do a lot to quickly move buyers along the path to purchase.
“A good sales story can draw prospects in and get them emotionally involved and inspire
action, in a way that hammering them with facts and figures simply cannot. And because
emotion plays a critical role in our ability to remember, good sales stories are extremely
effective in making sure that our message is remembered by busy prospects at the time
they are ready to make a decision.”
The story sales reps—and their content—tell needs to:
• Convince prospects that the status quo is unacceptable
• Educate them about their problems and options for overcoming them
• Inspire them to make a change and overcome objections to making a change
As we’ve moved from information
scarcity to information abundance,
it’s critical that the content companies
offer breaks down the buyer’s current
beliefs and replaces them with new,
unexpected ones that lead back to
the vendor.
“Consistency in sharing best practices and insights
develops high credibility, trust and sales.”
– Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale
TELL A STORY
THAT INSPIRES ACTION
17. 17
And here’s why it’s critical that sales reps provide this type of content: according to research
by the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), “many suppliers are churning out more and more
content in the hopes of capturing more customer mindshare. This approach, however,
creates even more noise and even less differentiation and does not help suppliers escape
the commoditization trap…buyers perceive little difference between the business value
various suppliers can offer.”1
Don’t distract sales reps with non-selling activities
Whether called thought leadership or something else, sales reps don’t have the time to
create this content. In fact, a 2014 Sirius Decisions study revealed that 65% of companies’
sales reps spend too many hours on non-selling activities, including digging up resources
and tailoring presentation materials.2
That’s hardly the best use of their time.
The answer is for sales and marketing to work together closely to make sure the content
their organization produces will truly hit the mark. Then sales needs to pay attention to
how and when that content is consumed. Smart reps know that content assets map to the
buyer’s cycle and can pinpoint when a prospect is ready to talk. That means they can strike
while the iron is hot.
Just remember—once reps are talking to prospective buyers, they need to carry on
the conversation that’s already been triggered by the company’s content. That’s one
morereason it’s important for marketing and sales to be in lockstep.
“When sales reps are interacting with
buyers who present a roadblock or
key question, they need content
that helps them get them through that
roadblock. Marketing needs to create
that content.”
– Craig Rosenberg, Co-founder, TOPO
TELL A STORY
THAT INSPIRES ACTION (CONT’D)
Key takeaways
• Tell “stories” that give prospective buyers an urgent reason to depart from the status
quo.
• Arm sales reps with content that fuels interactions.
• Prepare sales pros to continue the conversation started by the company’s content.
TIP: Get agreement from marketing that they’ll keep sales informed of every new content
asset: the target audience and buying stage, key message, where the asset can be found,
and talking points when sales reps are following up with prospects or customers.
1
The Corporate Executive Board Company, From Promotion to Emotion: Connecting B2B Customers to Brands, 2013
2
http://www.savogroup.com/blog/sales-productivity-efficiency/
18. 18
If buyers no longer want to be sold to but do want relevant information and insights, what’s
a sales rep to do? The answer is for them to tap into all the data at their disposal to inform
smart interactions. Doing so makes it easier to engage when the moment is right and
deepen connections over time.
There are plenty of golden nuggets to unearth in the social sphere. While salespeople can
glean lots of information through social listening and by participating in the social channels
where prospective buyers spend time, spending endless hours sifting through social data
isn’t the most effective strategy. It can quickly overwhelm even the savviest of reps.
Help sales make sense of social streams
That said, sales reps also can’t afford to ignore this stream of information. Recognizing this,
today’s top organizations enable their teams to make sense of social interactions and social
buying signals without drowning them.
Brian Kelly, CMO of InsideView, calls this giving your sales team the “knowledge advantage.”
And he advises the best way to empower them is to provide a tool that monitors and alerts
reps of buying signals and other account activities. That way, they can prioritize interactions,
understand what’s top of mind, and engage with timely, relevant messages.
Focus sales on relevant insights
Smart organizations are also providing their sales teams with access to CRM tools with
embedded social intelligence. With real-time feeds from leading social channels connecting
directly to lead and account contacts, these CRM systems allow reps to cut out the social
noise and focus on the insights that matter. That means they can reach out when the time is
right and communicate about the topics that matter. Plus, with all the intelligence they need
in one place, they can cut the time spent on pre-call research by over 70%.1
“Intelligence about your prospects and
customers is imperative to effective selling.
It enables reps to be relevant and timely with
their outreaches, prioritize accounts, and
increase probabilities to close/win deals.”
– Brian Kelly, CMO, InsideView
“In 15 of the US economy’s 17 sectors, companies with
more than 1,000 employees store, on average, over
235 terabytes of data—more data than is
contained in the US Library of Congress.”
– McKinsey Global Institute
GET THE EDGE
WITH SOCIAL INSIGHTS
1
InsideView, http://learnmore.insideview.com/Microsoft.html
19. 19
Here are three great ways to take advantage of
social intelligence embedded in CRM:
Find and connect with new prospects
• Tap into social networking contacts to jump-start “warm” lead-generation efforts.
• Identify prospects by focusing on conversations and topics relevant to your product
or service.
Engage in more meaningful conversations
• View social networking conversation history within the customer system of record.
• Utilize interests and discussion threads for more relevant conversations.
• Better understand your customers
• Gain a more holistic customer view by instantly seeing a social networking profile for
each contact.
• Better track relevant professional events such as job changes and promotions.
• Identify chief online champions and influencers.
Work your internal network
The power of social doesn’t stop there. The hallmark of every successful sales rep is finding
ways to take advantage of every resource possible to get the deal done. Some claim that in
the most effective sales teams, “strong sellers don’t merely execute their day-to-day tasks
well… they rely on collective skills in ways that weren’t possible just a few short years ago.”2
Reps need to harness the power of their own social networks, namely their colleagues. It’s
just a matter of tapping into the combined social intellect of their companies by working
like a network.
That’s why so many organizations are adopting enterprise social networking applications
like Yammer. Here’s good reason to follow in their footsteps: the 2014 Miller Heiman Sales
Best Practices Study found that 91% of world-class organizations collaborate across all
departments to close large deals, while only 53% of all organization collaborated on
large deals.3
GET THE EDGE
WITH SOCIAL INSIGHTS (CONT’D)
2
Harvard Business Review Blog Network, Why Individuals No Longer Rule on Sales Teams by Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon and
Nicholas Toman, January 9, 2014
3
http://www.millerheiman.com/knowledge_center/knowledge_center_articles/sales_performance_research/2014-miller-heiman-sales-
bestpractices-study-exec/
20. 20
Companies using enterprise social
networks saw business productivity
rise by as much as 30%.
– McKinsey Global Institute,
The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies, July 2012
21. 21
Using an internal social network, sales reps can collaborate more effectively and query their
colleagues directly. Just think how much time they’ll save finding information and getting
relevant answers.
Arming sales reps in this way should be a top priority for sales management. By better
collaborating with their colleagues, sales reps often feel more engaged at their companies.
Research shows engaged employees are more productive. Clearly, when we’re talking
about the sales force, that’s a direct impact on the bottom line.
Key takeaways
• Make it easy for sales to tap into social insights and other data about prospective buyers.
• Facilitate internal collaboration.
TIP: To encourage collaboration and adoption of enterprise social networking tool(s),
highlight a sales opportunity where the sales team rallied around a deal to win.
Sales no longer happens in a silo.
Salespeople need to tap into the
combined social intellect of their
company.
GET THE EDGE
WITH SOCIAL INSIGHTS (CONT’D)
22. 22
Whether it’s the Internet or mobile devices, technology has changed the way buyers are
buying, allowing them to plug in from anywhere to do their own research. But it’s also
changed how salespeople sell. Now, reps can work from anywhere, present from anywhere,
sell from anywhere. With the right devices and software, sales reps can:
• Cut through the clutter—to zero in and easily identify what they need to do next
• Find a relevant way to connect with buyers so they can win faster
• Easily collaborate with people, to find and access the information they need to ultimately
sell more
As James Oldroyd, Assistant Professor of International Business at Fisher College of
Business, Ohio State University explains, “You want to send a better email? There are tools
to help you. You want to measure your response to the email? There are tools to help you.
Every step, when to respond, how to respond, how to follow up, how to build a relationship
etc. can be measured and optimized.”
Identify the processes that work
It’s all a matter of choosing the right tools for the job at hand. It’s also critical, however,
to use technology to support the best way of working. Tiffani Bova of Gartner advises
organizations not to put the cart before the horse: “Technology for technology’s sake
doesn’t help anyone, and rolling out tools which users find no value in or don’t know how
to use puts a strain on any organization. If the organization is willing to change, then they
can’t look at technology as a way to automate and improve processes. Technology must be
used to support (new) processes, which are built from new ways of thinking about how to
create a top performing sales culture.”
“Ubiquitous selling means spreading client
attraction and retention efforts wide and
far, using a multitude of approaches so that
the target market finds you wherever they
go. Ubiquity involves using every tool
available to you and not just relying on the
telephone or email as too many sellers do.”
– Colleen Francis, founder and president
of Engage Selling Solutions
“Progressive companies are
changing business processes to
adapt to a new style of work influenced
by mobile devices, collaboration tools
and social technologies.…businesses are
changing processes to embrace the new
business buyer...”1
“The most important thing is to base your sales
strategy and process decisions on what your
buyers want.”
– Craig Rosenberg, Co-founder, TOPO
CONNECTING IN THE AGE OF THE CUSTOMER—
HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY FOR
BETTER SELLING
1
Avanade, GLOBAL RESEARCH SHOWS MOBILE AND
SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES COMPLICATE B2B SALES
PROCESSES; BUSINESS BUYERS MIMICKING CONSUMER
SHOPPERS, November 19, 2013
23. 23
In fact, formalizing sales process workflows is key to increasing productivity. Think of it the
way a data scientist would. What elements around an opportunity provide true insight into
pipeline? What key markers of success should the sales team focus on? It’s not enough
to rely on the instinct of the sales force (as solid as that might be). Companies need to
determine the key indicators for each stage in an opportunity. Not only does this reduce
guesswork, it can provide sales managers with actionable feedback on how a rep can
improve.
Now that we’ve covered the basics when it comes to laying a solid foundation, here’s a
rundown on the latest tools designed to take sales productivity to new levels.
A modern CRM solution can better enable sales
There’s little question that CRM systems are the de facto tool for sales, but in the past,
CRM systems weren’t built to help salespeople do their job. They were made for reporting
purposes, so the management team could get an accurate view into forecast. We call those
systems of oppression. Salespeople had to take time out of their day to keep the system
updated. Those systems are a drain on productivity and don’t help reps do what’s needed
to sell. Even systems created just 10 or so years ago aren’t optimized for what a sales person
needs to do today.
Let’s consider what happens when reps get a lead. They have to log into one application
(i.e., the CRM system) to see the lead, then open a browser to start researching that person
and company on the buyer’s company website and on social networks.
All of this takes time, can lead to distractions, and still often leaves reps short on
information. Once sales finds the opportunity to connect, they need to get as educated
as they can—as quickly as possible—to identify a way to provide immediate value.
As Colleen Francis, founder and president of Engage Selling Solutions explains, “The CRM
system must be the hub for all sales templates, proposals, marketing materials and coaching
dashboards. If everything sellers need is in one place, they will use the tool completely.
When CRM is being utilized to its fullest extent, the team will be more productive and the
organization will have a more predictable sales forecast.”
The good news is that CRM technology has evolved to help sales reps conduct research
internally and externally, collaborate with colleagues, make connections on social networks,
and focus on the buyer. The result is a modern selling experience that facilitates interactions
and sales.
“My ideal sales dashboard shows all of my
team’s activities and presents it in a way
that allows us to make smart decisions.
Ideally, it would track phrases that
resonated most with buyers based on the
circumstances, and would track the best
questions for each of our buyer types.”
– Lori Richardson, founder and CEO of
Score More Sales
CONNECTING IN THE AGE OF THE CUSTOMER—
HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY FOR
BETTER SELLING (CONT’D)
24. 24
Put predictive analytics into the hands of every rep
Today sales can also tap into the power of predictive analytics and dashboards to identify
promising opportunities. In a nutshell, predictive analytics makes it possible for everyday
businesspeople to query data using natural language and checking off boxes for instant and
visual results. Specifically, they can apply analytics to data sets and easily see possible future
outcomes. Many call this the democratization of data. No matter what its name, it’s all about
putting important insights directly into sales reps’ hands.
Imagine entering the query “show all customers by geography and lead source over the
past five years and predict the likelihood of repeats.” Or think about being able to take note
of when a certain segment of prospects is typically ready to speak to a rep. The sales team
can reach out when the opportunity is hot. They can even pinpoint when existing customers
are most likely to purchase an additional product or service, and jump on crossand upsell
opportunities.
But sales pros need an easy way to view and analyze all that data. That’s where the
dashboards in CRM systems shine. With it, sales pros can easily:
• Visualize data in a clean way
• Easily draw conclusions from trends
• Make the right decisions when it comes to assessing the health of their pipeline,
prioritizing the hottest leads, and focusing on the right deals
Arm road warriors
At the same time, sales apps need to do one thing: Help sellers close more deals faster—
wherever they are. The smartest organizations are responding to the BYOD trend by
empowering reps with a secure way to access information, content and colleagues via their
mobile devices, whether smartphones or tablets. Doing so keeps the sales team happy,
focused and productive.
Organizations doing business on a global scale need to help their reps to do their jobs more
effectively around the world. Until recently, this meant establishing field sales offices in every
location where the company did business. But with today’s advanced tools, a new approach
is possible. For instance, Skype instantly translates conversations, enabling teams to knock
down language barriers and easily sell in global markets.
Key takeaways
• Consider the way the sales team prefers to work when selecting tools to support them.
• Use technology to automate as many processes as possible.
• Provide tools that streamline the sales process from beginning to end.
CONNECTING IN THE AGE OF THE CUSTOMER—
HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY FOR
BETTER SELLING (CONT’D)
25. 25
There you have it... A few best practices and tips to help
you sell effectively in the modern era.
Read on to hear from some of the
world’s top sales thought leaders.
26. 26
Insights from
the experts.
26
We published these responses from some of the
world’s most influential sales thought leaders, raw
and unfiltered. While the views expressed here
may not necessarily reflect the views of Microsoft
or endorse Microsoft’s products, we are all about
diversity of opinion and open dialogue. We believe
this is the best way we can support our customers.
27. 27
Why is sales productivity a key issue today?
Sales productivity is a critical measurement for the success of
any sales and marketing organization. When you increase sales
productivity you reduce your costs of sales and increase your speed
to revenue. Sales resources are expensive and hit the bottom
line, and for SaaS companies, a lower cost of sales and marketing
to revenue nets higher shareholder value. Sales enablement
should be a joint responsibility between sales and marketing to
improve sales productivity. From onboarding and continued sales
training to compensation, measurement, and sales tools – all
areas need continual focus and ongoing enhancement. According
to SiriusDecisions, 52% of lost sales are due to a failure in sales
enablement.
Has the buyer process replaced the sales funnel?
If so, what are the implications for sales reps and
leaders?
We hear stats that more and more of the buyer’s journey is online
and occurs before there is an actual connection with sales – as high
as 70%—but the buyer process will rarely if ever replace the sales
funnel. The buyer’s process or journey will overlap and run parallel
to a company’s sales funnel. So we need to make every effort to
align the buyer’s journey with our sales cycle and communicate
the right message at the right time. Marketers may need to take on
more of the sales role in the early stages of the funnel with content
and education. As sales reps and leaders, we need to make sure
we partner with marketing to have the relevant content online so
that the buyer can self-educate and reach out to sales as needed
and when ready. And we need to monitor our buyer’s activity and
proactively engage at the right time by providing sales with the tools
to monitor and the content to respond to prospective customers.
Our communications and nurture programs should also align to
the stage that the buyer is in so we don’t lose them from our funnel
or fail to realize they’re not ready to engage. At DocuSign, we are
careful to align the buyer’s journey of Need – Learn – Evaluate –
Negotiate – Purchase – Implement – Advocate to our sales cycle
with the relevant content syndicated at the right time in that journey.
What are your top tips for improving sales
productivity?
My top tips are education, lead qualification process and sales
tools—not to mention hiring the right folks. From the moment you
onboard your sales reps, you need to effectively train them on your
solution, on the buyer persona and journey, on discovery questions,
on the content available for them to educate and move the buyer
through the gates, on competitors and typical objections, pricing,
and on the sales tools available to them. And then you need to
reiterate and trust, yet verify, they digested the learnings and are
applying them correctly.
As far as lead qualification, you need to partner with marketing to
ensure you agree on the buyer personas, and what makes for a
quality lead. Agree on the scoring criteria and how you mark the
incoming leads for priority order. Make sure sales are focused on the
leads most likely to convert.
And pick your sales tools for the entire funnel. As soon as a lead
comes in it should be accurately scored by your automation
platform for priority order, and sales should have the appropriate
scripts, content and qualification criteria to move them through
the funnel quickly. As they get ready to close the deal and send
out the contract, you should arm them with DocuSign’s Digital
Transaction Management platform to save money and quickly close
the deal online. No need to chase the paperwork, print, sign, fax or
overnight.
What are your suggestions for truly aligning sales
and marketing around the empowered buyer?
For sales and marketing to align around the empowered buyer,
they need to have three things:
1. Build the models together,
2. Transparency in all results and metrics, and
3. Habitual communication.
People commit to and enforce things they helped build. Sales
and marketing need to build the following together: the waterfall
definitions and stages, buyer personas, lead flow model, lead
scoring and qualification models. They need to monitor the results
of the models and continually troubleshoot, improve and enhance.
And sales and marketing must have constant communication on
a weekly basis where feedback is welcomed and freely shared as
part of the improvement and alignment process. Like any good
relationship, communication makes a huge difference.
Insights From The Experts:
VP of Demand Generation, Docusign
@meisenberg
Meagen Eisenberg
28. 28
What new processes and technologies must
sales harness to succeed in today’s era of the
empowered buyer?
SiriusDecisions has some great models and processes for sales to
harness from persona creation to waterfall metrics and conversions
to lead scoring and nurture best practices. As far as technologies,
the list is only growing with the marketing and sales clouds being
built out across some major contenders. The Gartner quote— CMOs
will spend more than the CIO by 2017 has already come to fruition—
we already spend more at DocuSign in marketing and sales
software. We started with our core technologies—CRM and MAP
(Marketing Automation Platform) at the end of 2011. Once we had
our MAP platform in place we added on many other technologies.
We run more than 15 marketing technologies for our B2B business
with several directly enhancing and improving sales productivity.
Twitter and LinkedIn aid in our focus and training around social
selling and understanding the prospects interests. And of course we
use our own technology—DocuSign—to close business faster by
expediting the sales contract process.
If you could see any information about your
leads, contacts, and accounts in your sales
dashboard, what would that be?
Interest and engagement are key for a sales rep to prioritize who
to talk with first and how to frame the best conversation to improve
conversion rates and sales productivity. At DocuSign, we provide our
sales team with insights to the lead and contact’s web activity, form
submissions, online search terms, social activity, email response and
more. All of this adds up to a 360 degree view of the prospect. And
now with the harnessing of big data, we can provide external data
around finances, social activity (hiring for instance), web presence,
and software they leverage. All of this provides triggers for sales to
map to our existing customer DNA to improve conversations and fit
to our solutions. Of course, we would all love to provide the BANT
answers upon receiving a lead, but we have a ways to go for that
without sales intervention and qualification.
Why are social selling and social insights
important to an overall sales strategy and what
are the top ways reps can tap into these?
Social selling and social insights are definitely part of the sales
arsenal and should be adopted if not already by savvy sales reps.
We train our reps regularly at DocuSign on the latest social selling
techniques within LinkedIn and Twitter. And DocuSign uses LinkedIn
within CRM. Peer-to-peer introductions and referrals are still the
fastest way to convert a buyer into a customer, as well as the number
one trusted source for many buyers. And by monitoring a buyer’s
activities and interests on social sites, such as Twitter, we can better
form not only a relationship with the buyer, but also a solution that
matches their needs and in turn convert to a sale faster.
Meagen Eisenberg (continued)
29. 29
Why is sales productivity a key issue today?
To have the most productive sales force, sales leaders must have
an effective strategy in place. The use of a sales strategy means
the leadership team allocates resources efficiently, and can get the
most production from his/her sales force. The objectives of a sales
strategy should be:
• Align the sales strategy with buyer needs
• Align the sales strategy with the corporate strategy
• Alight the sales strategy with product/solution strategy
• Capture the available market by outselling the competition
It is key to have an operating plan in place to ensure a productive
sales force.
Has the buyer process replaced the sales funnel?
If so, what are the implications for sales reps and
leaders?
You must define your buyer’s process and create Buying Process
Maps. Buying Process Maps are sales tools that map the decision
making process used to purchase a product, service or solution.
This provides the sales team a blueprint so they can get into deals
early enough to win them. The use of one means that the buyer and
seller are completely aligned resulting in the elimination of blown
opportunities.
According to SBI’s research, there are several key benefits to Buying
Process Maps.
• 42% longer buying cycle—with a Buying Process Map in place,
sellers are more than twice as likely to get engaged with a buyer
early enough to help define the problem.
• 113% greater chance to engage with a buyer prior to the Options
phase. The Options phase of the buying process is when the
buyer has already defined the problem, and is determining what
options can solve this particular problem.
• 47% fewer competitors involved in each deal
• 37% higher win rates
• 26% higher average deal size
Your internal sales process and how you have defined your
customer’s buying cycle should be aligned for the greatest chance
of success.
What are your top tips for improving sales
productivity?
One way to improve sales productivity is to complete a Sales
Marketing Assessment. The objectives of Sales Marketing
Assessment are:
• Identify, validate and quantify the opportunities for growth
• Prioritize the opportunities for growth based on the financial
return, level of effort and probability of success.
• Get all major stakeholders to buy into the sales and marketing
plan.
A Sales Marketing Assessment will result in a set of
recommendations and a plan to implement the recommendations
to accelerate revenue growth.
What are your suggestions for truly aligning sales
and marketing around the empowered buyer?
Decision makers today are overwhelmed. They are suffering from
information overload. How do you stand out? To do this, marketing
and sales must recognize the problem, understand the new buyer,
and work together to embrace the new trend.
Marketing has a strategy and sales does too. Though often, the two
are not integrated. As a result, there are serious issues for resource
allocation. Time and money go to waste, the sales funnel springs
leaks, and the goals aren’t achieved.
The solution is to align the marketing and sales strategy, and
integrate the processes for effective handoff points. This allows the
teams to focus on the mission critical initiatives that contribute to the
most revenue growth.
What new processes and technologies must
sales harness to succeed in today’s era of the
empowered buyer?
The new buyer is well informed, technology enabled, saturated with
media and suffering from information overload. As a result the buyer
self-directs his educational process in search of a solution to his
problem. Our research shows that in 2014, 69% of the B2B buyer’s
journey will be complete before the buyer ever communicates with
the sales force.
Sales leaders have two choices. The first choice is stay with the
“status quo”—spend time, money, and effort in the “31%”. As a result,
every deal will be competitive. They will be unable to get into deals
early enough to influence the customer’s evaluation criteria. Our
research suggests that if you make this choice you are going to miss
the number more than half of the time.
The second choice is to embrace the trend. Spend time, money and
effort in the “69%”. By doing this Sales leaders are not competing on
price and win deals with little competition. SBI research shows that
sales forces doing this are 56% more likely to make the number.
Insights From The Experts:
Director of Marketing, SBI, Sales Benchmark Index
@cdieckmeyer
Christina Dieckmeyer
30. 30
Why are social selling and social insights
important to an overall sales strategy, and what
are the top ways reps can tap into these?
Social selling is a modern prospecting methodology that fills the
funnel with opportunities. It generates meetings with decision
makers inside of target prospects. Top reps can use social selling
to make their number without any dependencies on other
departments.
SBI’s research has shown that Social Selling is:
• The #1 source of rep generated opportunities (note: 70/30 split
sales-to-marketing best-in-class)
• The #1 shift in sales training dollars (note: 48% budget increase)
• The #1 Lead to close conversion rate (note: 15% from first contact
inside 12 months vs. 3% marketing sourced)
There are 3 steps to achieve Social Selling Excellence:
• Profiles. You must create a world class LinkedIn profile. Prospects
rely on the web, and specifically LinkedIn, to do their research.
Not just research on problems and their solution options, but on
people who can help them in their journey.
• Reach. You must increase the reach of the sales force. This is done
by multiplying the number and quality of connections in their
LinkedIn database. Sales teams will make or miss their number
based on the quantity and quality of the team’s connections.
• Referrals. You must generate referrals amongst buyers. To
monetize the database, a process is needed to get warm
introductions to decision makers in target accounts.
Christina Dieckmeyer (continued)
31. 31
Provide top three pieces of advice you can share
with aspiring sales leaders.
1. Know your buyer. Sounds like motherhood and apple pie and
sales 101, but I am constantly running into organizations that don’t
have a solid understanding of their buyers. What are their pains
and priorities, how do they measure success, what is their modern
buying process? How can you respectfully “sell”, or bring value to
the table if you don’t understand what makes your buyers tick and
how you can move the needle for them and their organization? By
understanding your buyer and their buying process across these
dimensions, your reps can more effectively prioritize accounts and
engage with timely, value-based, compelling messages.
2. Give your team the knowledge advantage. Intelligence about
your prospects and customers is imperative to effective selling.
It enables reps to be relevant and timely with their outreaches,
prioritize accounts, and increase probabilities to close/win deals.
Don’t make reps spend half their time doing account research and
tracking. Their time is better spent selling, but selling smart. Give
them a tool that monitors and alerts them of buying signals and
other account activities that allow them to prioritize accounts and
engage with timely, relevant messages. Prospects are 32% more
likely to reply to relevant messages, but sales reps spend as much as
42% of their time doing research. Tools like InsideView automate the
delivery of account intelligence.
3. Get aligned with marketing. Marketing is your friend more than
ever. Marketing has the reach and ability to significantly impact close
rates. Most marketers are now measured on revenue (or certainly
should be), meaning they have to deliver leads that convert to
revenue. And marketing programs are more focused than ever on
not just top-of-funnel leads but on programs that bring in leads
mid-funnel and nurture all the way to close. Marketing programs
should be completely aligned with your sales process. They should
nurture and acquire leads with the same persona messaging being
delivered by your reps. The result is a consistent lead-to-revenue
process that more effectively moves deals to close. A key way to this
alignment is the flow of lead information from marketing to sales.
The lead should hit sales in a complete and accurate form. And by
complete I mean not just contact name and contact info, but all the
news and social buzz associated with the account. Right there, ready
to use. The key being, the master customer and contact data needs
to come from a single source, needs to be highly accurate, and
needs to include insights and connections for true sales-ready leads.
The result: Sales loves marketing for killer leads, and marketing loves
sales because they convert the leads to revenue.
How important are social selling and social insights
to your overall sales strategy and why?
Very important. We leverage insights in both sales and marketing in a
few ways:
1. We look for buying signals. Buying signals can be seen in a couple
ways. The first is seeing news that indicates a buying process could
be underway. For example, you sell office furniture, and a company
just announced an expansion. Second, a prospect is posting
questions in social groups that indicates they’re doing research for a
certain product or service.
2. We engage with our market in social. We respond and contribute
to social posts, questions, and comments to show we care and can
help improve their business. By engaging, you not only answer
the individual’s question, but the interaction is seen by potentially
thousands or even millions of people.
3. Contributing thought leadership material and moderating industry
groups. This is a great way to establish thought leadership and
market leadership. We moderate a few groups that have developed
into very active and engaging forums for sharing ideas, discussing
best practices, and getting questions answered. This has established
InsideView as a thought leader in Social Selling, CRM Intelligence,
and Sales Intelligence.
What are the top 3-5 ways marketing can better
support sales?
1. Making sure the programs and content are aligned with the buying
process, with an emphasis on overcoming the biggest barriers.
2. Deliver leads that are complete, accurate, and truly qualified.
3. Establish thought leadership in your industry.
How important is content and thought leadership
in the sales process and why?
It’s a must-have. We’re trying to answer the three key questions: Why
do anything? Why now? Why us? Thought leadership can contribute
significantly to all three by informing the market of your value, instilling
urgency, and differentiating over the competition.
Has the buyer process replaced the sales funnel?
The sales funnel should be aligned with the buyer process, at a
minimum. It’s part of understanding your buyer and guiding them
to close. If you’re not aligned with the buyer process, your sales
process will be less efficient and effective. The tools and technology
are available to monitor buyers and be timely with engagement and
messages. Why wouldn’t you?
What new processes and technologies must sales
harness to succeed in today’s era of the empowered
buyer?
I believe that CRM Intelligence is required for effective sales. Without
having a way to monitor your target market and identifying buying
signals, you’re missing out. CRM Intelligence arms reps with accurate
data, buying signals and events, and connections for getting an intro.
This information is delivered directly within CRM for easy access.
Insights From The Experts:
CMO, InsideView
@bkkelly
Brian Kelly
32. 32
Why is sales productivity a key issue today?
Sales productivity is required to maintain a high-performance
culture. Top-performing organizations manage their teams to ensure
80% or more are hitting targets (and poor performers are coached
up or out quickly). In a typical sales organization, 10% of salespeople
overachieve, always exceeding their target. Another 20%
underachieve dramatically and are considered “deadwood.” And
70% are average, performing inconsistently and regularly missing
their quotas. Top-performing companies build an entire team of top
performers. To do this, they ruthlessly manage productivity and get
rid of their average, not merely their underachieving, “deadwood.”
Their tolerance level is far below what most companies will endure.
I call this “Find the best, remove the rest.”
Has the buyer process replaced the sales funnel?
If so, what are the implications for sales reps and
leaders? It’s not the funnel that has been replaced
but the sales
process. Today, with buyers now controlling the majority of the front
end of the sales process, and, with over 57% of buying decisions
being made before a seller is contacted, sellers must learn to
facilitate a buying process—not conduct a sales process—and
adapt their sales process to be aligned with the way their buyers are
buying. The sales funnel remains a critical tool for sellers to use in
managing their business but it must be adapted to reflect the new
processes buyers are using to buy.
What are the most important elements of a
sales story, and how can effective storytelling
accelerate prospect movement through the
buying cycle?
Real-life examples and metaphors. Real-life examples because
buyers want solid proof that businesses like them are using the
products successfully. Buyers care little for why you think you can
help them but they care deeply about what others have said about
your help. The smartest sellers use a combination of case studies,
examples and testimonials in audio, video, and text format to
prove to their prospects that they have a long history of success.
Metaphors are critical because they make the abstract clear, create
a sense of familiarity, trigger emotions, draw attention, and motivate
action. As people buy emotionally and justify logically, the right
metaphor can be the difference between winning and losing a sale.
What new processes and technologies must
sales harness to succeed in today’s era of the
empowered buyer?
Ubiquity. Ubiquitous selling means that you are spreading your
client attraction and retention efforts wide and far, using a multitude
of approaches so that your target market finds you wherever they
go. Ubiquity involves using every tool available to you and not just
relying on the telephone, or email as too many sellers do. In this
way, the lines are blurring between sellers and marketers. The most
successful sellers are not relying on their marketing departments.
Instead, they are using marketing as a springboard to be more
leveraged in the marketplace, ensuring prospects exclaim “hey!
I see you everywhere!”
What are the top three pieces of advice you can
share with aspiring sales leaders?
• Coach your team 3 hours per month at a minimum. Sellers that
are coached 3 hours or more per month achieve on average 107%
of target. Sellers that are coached 2 hours a month achieve less
than 90% of their targets. Coaching is a no-brainer.
• Monitor and measure leading indicator performance indicators
such as pipeline health, number of calls, hours on the phone, the
number of meetings, proposals, etc. A sale is a lagging indicator
of success. When a sale is made, it means that the seller first
successfully completed a series of presale activities or leading
indicators. In order to assure future success, you must track these
activities.
• Use a CRM for everything. Your CRM system must be the hub for
all sales templates, proposals, marketing materials, and coaching
dashboards. If everything a seller needs is in one place, they will
use the tool completely. When the CRM system is being utilized
to its fullest extent, the team will be more productive and you will
have a more predictable sales forecast.
Insights From The Experts:
Founder and President, Engage Selling Solutions
@EngageColleen
Colleen Francis
33. 33
How important are social selling and social
insights to an overall sales strategy?
75% of B2B buyers state that they are influenced by some sort of
social media during the buying process. The key to using social
media profitably is to be active on the same social media platforms
your buyers are using. There is no point in promoting your
business on Facebook (for example) if none of your buyers ever use
Facebook! Social media should be part of a broader sales strategy,
not your only sales strategy, and must include a variety of platforms
such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, blogs, forums,
and audio (podcasting) sites for the best results.
What are the top 3-5 ways marketing can do a
better job of supporting sales?
1. Create a common definition of a qualified lead before marketing
campaigns are started.
2. Prepare an integrated sales and marketing funnel showing the
conversion rates and steps of leads at all stages of the buying
process.
3. Speak to customers directly to build use cases, case studies and
testimonials for inclusion in all marketing materials.
How important is content and thought leadership
in the sales process and why?
Critical. Today, no one buys from salespeople—they only buy from
experts. And buyers are actively searching for thought leaders and
experts daily. How do you make yourself noticed and get found as a
thought leader? By building or promoting a platform where you can
share what you and your company know better than anyone else.
The platform can be varied, and include book publishing, blog posts,
regular emails, podcasts, market- or association-specific websites,
social media groups, newsletter articles and public speaking—all
with content fine-tuned to address topics that are relevant to
your target audience. This is not a place for product pitches or
demonstrations. The more opportunities you create to be seen
as a familiar, trusted expert who helps people solve their business
problems, the more likely it is for you to get meetings with new
buyers.
Colleen Francis (continued)
34. 34
Why is sales productivity a key issue today?
Gone are the days of blindly stumbling in to a prospect meeting
without having at least a rudimentary understanding of the
prospect’s business environment, challenges and opportunities. This
discovery is the cost of entry into the sales process, but it can take
a fair amount of time out of an already busy schedule. If other less
critical tasks cannot be streamlined, delegated or automated, the
discovery process often suffers, as do sales results.
What are most important elements of sales story?
Those of us in sales have much to learn from the 1.8 trillion dollar
entertainment industry on how to engage and move prospects
through the use of story.
• An attention-grabbing opening. Why do movies start with a
car chase? Because the director knows that if they don’t grab the
audience’s attention in the first few seconds, they may lose them
altogether. A sales story is no different. A strong opening doesn’t
give your audience a chance to think, “Why is she telling me this?”
or “Hey, I don’t have time to hear a story!”
• Dramatic tension. Stories are based on drama and drama
requires conflict and tension before it ultimately comes to a
resolution. Give your story the “So what?” test. If it doesn’t pass,
you may need to escalate the dramatic tension. At every point in
your story ask yourself, “And then what would happen?” to ratchet
up the tension. The tension should be at a peak before you show
the solution.
• A theme. Good stories trust the intelligence of their audience
and let the listener come to their own conclusion. In sales this is
especially powerful, as the listener’s own conclusion has much
more weight. By weaving that theme throughout our story, we
can make a huge impact on our audience.
• A clear, strong closing. A brilliantly told story with an unclear,
over-explained or simply blown ending can undo any positive
affect the story may have made. Know what your ending is and
when you’ve reached it. Resist the urge to start explaining what
your story meant and its relevance to your prospect.
How can effective storytelling accelerate the
prospect through the buying cycle?
Most decisions are made emotionally then justified intellectually. A
good sales story can draw prospects in and get them emotionally
involved and inspire action, in a way that hammering them with facts
and figures simply can not.
In addition, since stories can create emotion and emotion plays a
critical role in our ability to remember, they are extremely effective in
making sure that our message is remembered by busy prospects at
the time they are ready to make a decision.
How can marketing support sales?
Understanding the reality of what salespeople face in the field:
audiences’ that are short on time and attention and who are
comparing their presentation to a dozen other similar presentations
they’ve seen. Marketing needs to work closely with sales to create
flexible decks that take into account how people absorb information
today, have multiple points of engagement and interaction, and
differentiate how their solution is presented from the competition.
Insights From The Experts:
Author, Actor, Founder
Performance Sales and Training
@acting4sales
Julie Hansen
35. 35
Why is sales productivity a key issue today?
Helping is the new selling. Unfortunately, most companies are not
yet at the point of recognizing they need to give their sales teams
permission and tools to spend time enabling prospects. Too often
sales teams are pressured to make the next sale, maximize margin
on each deal, and get their funnels to be 4x their quota. That drives
behavior that is not conducive to ‘helping’ and only reinforces the
‘selling’ we have all come to loath.
Has the buyer process replaced the sales funnel?
If so, what are the implications for sales reps and
leaders?
Yes, the customer decision journey or ‘buyer process’ has replaced
the sales funnel. The sales funnel is an arbitrary representation of
wishful thinking. It was a useful framework two decades ago when B2B
sales teams actually had a significant level of influence on customer
decision-making. Today, with ubiquitous information and social
networks, customers are in charge of their decision process, customer
experience, and brand relationships. Companies need to scrap their
sales funnel and focus on enabling buyers.
That being said, the place to start is to understand the customer
decision journey. Counter to market myth, there are not thousands of
journeys but each vendor has about 3-4 journeys that cover 99.9%
of their high-value customer segments. The implication is a simple
one—let go of yesteryear’s comfort zone and embrace what the
customers’ expectations and actions are today. Aligning your sales
methodology and sales enablement tools to your customer journeys
will give you a much more reliable way to qualify opportunities and
manage your sales forecast.
What are your suggestions for truly aligning sales
and marketing around the empowered buyer?
Sales and marketing alignment has been a never-ending power
struggle over resources. By focusing on the buyer, instead of each
other, sales and marketing can get on the same page and work
together to enable buyers to achieve their desired outcomes. That
also means that CEOs need to stop pitting these teams against each
other as this only hurts the top-line. Furthermore customers are very
astute at picking up on any team disconnects.
The first suggestion I have is to drop MQL/SAL/SQL reporting—
measure revenue and conversion from each stage in the customer
decision journey. Second suggestion is to measure social
engagement—based on how successful the company is with each
high-value target account. Third, marketing needs to own taking
a lead well into the conversion funnel and, for each lead, craft a
full handoff for sales that includes history of engagement and the
engagement strategy for sales. Fourth, sales needs to stop being lazy
about leads and actually act on what marketing passes over.
What new processes and technologies must
sales harness to succeed in today’s era of the
empowered buyer?
Our research shows that organizations with tightly aligned CRM and
Marketing Automation systems outperform (from a revenue target-
attainment perspective) peers who don’t use these technologies or
don’t have them well integrated. I’d add to that the effective use of
LinkedIn, content curation and distribution, sales intelligence, and
sales enablement platforms that enrich the customer experience and
feed content analytics to marketing.
What are your top tips for improving sales
productivity?
IDemand Metric has a fantastic ‘how-to’ guide on how to develop
sales playbooks based on customer journey maps. I recommend folks
check it out along with our over 500 other guides, reports and tools.
If you could see any information about your leads,
contacts, and accounts in your sales dashboard,
what would that be?
• What stage in the customer decision journey are leads in?
• What % of leads are where in the journey?
• What is the % conversion from journey stage?
• What is the desired outcome leads are trying to achieve?
• What is the sentiment of leads at each stage?
• What is the degree of social engagement at each journey stage?
• Lead-to-close conversion and time-to-close?
• % disengagement of leads by journey stage?
Why are social selling and social insights
important to an overall sales strategy, and what
are the top ways reps can tap into these?
With 70% of the buyers’ journey complete before companies ever
want to talk to sales reps, it’s critical that reps engage their target
accounts via social networks (Twitter, LinkedIn, etc). Social selling
is a misnomer; it should be called social enabling or buying. Social
networks are powerful vehicles to build trust and credibility, which are
the critical first steps for moving the conversation from social to other
channels (in person and phone). Again the recipe is simple— focus on
helping; the sale will follow. Focus on understanding what the buyer is
trying to achieve and why it’s important to them.
Stop hammering sales reps on how many cold calls they did in a
day. Instead teach them how to engage on social and give them lots
of content that has been developed for each stage in the customer
decision journey. Then trust your sales teams to do the right thing. Let
them do what they do best—help prospects.
Social selling starts with your culture. If your company culture is
rooted in pressure and constantly terminating the bottom 10%,
you’ll never get there. If your company culture is based on enabling,
empowering, and training employees to be the best they can be,
you’ll grow fast and it’ll be sustainable. In other words, social selling is
not a gimmick but a core business strategy.
Insights From The Experts:
Founder and CEO, DemandMetrics
@DemandMetric
Jesse Hopps
36. 36
Why is sales productivity a key issue today?
Sellers are under constant pressure to achieve sales objectives, and
the bar keeps rising. Couple that pressure to drive revenue and
pipeline with representing multiple products/services, understanding
each prospect’s business, and finding unique ways to get in front of
buyers who block emails and phone calls, means sellers must work
very smartly. More importantly, productivity should not be confused
with activity. To be successful in today’s global, fast-paced, competitive
sales environment, the sales rock stars focus their attention on the
right people, the right opportunities, and the right activity.
Has the buyer process replaced the sales funnel?
If so, what are the implications for sales reps and
leaders?
Yes, the traditional sales funnel has been blown apart. Buyers
no longer enter the top of the funnel as a lead that is scored by
marketing and passed over to sales who then sets a meeting,
presents, proposes, and closes business. Estimates vary, but we know
that buyers begin the sales process without sellers roughly 70% of the
time. And leads can come from anywhere: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook,
a blog, a referral, marketing event or an email campaign.
The implication is that sales and marketing must first accept that
buyer behavior has changed. Traditional sales and marketing
processes are not as effective as they once were because the buyer’s
journey looks much different than it did 5 or 10 years ago. As a result
of the massive disruption that the internet and social media brought
with it, sales and marketing must work together. Each camp has to
think differently about their roles. Marketers need to think more like
sellers, and sellers need to learn to become more like marketers.
What are your top tips for improving sales
productivity?
• Start with a clear plan for where you are headed. This is especially
important now that sellers must leverage social media as part of
their sales process.
• Have a system, use the right tools, and follow a process consistently.
• Learn, learn, learn, and continuously adapt.
• Focus on the right activity. Call and meet with the right people.
Qualify early for a no and move to the more promising
opportunities.
What are your suggestions for truly aligning sales
and marketing around the empowered buyer?
Sales needs to stop assuming that using social is only marketing’s job.
Marketing should stop using social channels as just another way to
push information out to the marketplace. A Social Selling Framework
should include: Strategy, Skills, and Execution. Sales and marketing
need to plan the Social Selling strategy together. They will answer
questions like:
• Are our sales and marketing goals aligned?
• Who is our target audience? What do they care about?
• What social channels are our prospects likely to use?
• How will we track social interactions and nurture leads?
• Do we have a process for capturing opportunities that come from
non-traditional sources like Twitter?
• What are we known for, and how will we communicate our
message?
• What are the right social networking platforms for our salespeople
to use?
• Do our people have the right sales and technology skills?
• What training is needed?
• How do we define social selling success?
• What will we monitor, measure, and track?
Skills come next: In this step, you must honestly assess the people’s
sales and technology skills and determine what type of training is
needed. When it comes to selling, what areas need help?
• Networking effectively
• Prospecting
• Qualifying opportunities
• Planning for sales calls
• Presenting your solution
• Negotiating terms
• Closing deals
What about the technology? Do your salespeople understand what
platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are designed to do, or
how and when a buyer is likely to engage there? Don’t assume a great
profile or clicking on a few buttons will lead to sales results. More
likely, it will only lead to sales frustration.
Finally, execution. This is the final phase of the Social Selling
Framework. Here is where everything is pulled together. It requires
disciplined behavior – making sure that salespeople are engaging in
the right activities consistently and using technology in the right way.
Salespeople represent the company’s brand, and how they choose
to represent themselves online will make a big difference in success
or failure. Consistent participation generates the visibility needed to
demonstrate credibility and thought leadership, in advance of sales
opportunities. Salespeople need to follow a daily process of using
social to help them generate new leads, reach decision makers fast,
differentiate themselves from competitors, present solutions at the
right time, demonstrate business acumen, and secure those meetings
quickly. The end goal is closed deals. The process matters!
Sales leaders will need to diligently monitor and measure the effective
execution of sales activities, which include constantly evaluating the
sales and technology skills of their people and providing the ongoing
training, coaching, and support that they need to succeed.
Insights From The Experts:
Author and Change Agent, Social Centered Selling
@barbaragiamanco
Barbara Giamanco
37. 37
What new processes and technologies must
sales harness to succeed in today’s era of the
empowered buyer?
It isn’t just new processes and technologies that salespeople need to
use; they need to change their mindset and behavior entirely. This
is no longer about simply meeting someone at an event, sending
email, or making a phone call, getting a meeting, presenting the
solution, sending over a proposal, and closing a deal.
Salespeople need to learn how to use social technologies effectively.
Having a LinkedIn profile and connecting with people is one thing,
but using it as a marketing and sales engine is something else
entirely. If leads can come from anywhere and buyers source the
web and their social networks for recommendations, sellers have to
be where their buyers are. Using social must be a daily part of the
routine.
If you aren’t viewed as a trusted resource and providing value in
advance of sales opportunities, you get locked out. With buyers
searching the web doing their upfront homework, they better
be able to find you and discern that you have the credibility
and capability that they want. Tips for increasing visibility and
demonstrating credibility beyond using social:
• Speak on panels at association events or conferences
• Deliver an educational session on business topic as association
events or conferences
• Conduct/facilitate informational webinars with industry guest
experts
• Host a webinar in which customers tell their story
• Host a peer-to-peer networking event that includes a guest
speaker
In all of these cases, the focus is not on your company or what you
sell, it is in offering something that is educational. Giving is more
important than getting. Giving first leads to more opportunities
over time.
If you could see any information about your
leads, contacts, and accounts in your sales
dashboard, what would that be?
Naturally, you want to see the standard stuff (name, title, location,
revenue, stages of deals in the pipeline, etc.), but now you need
the social data and public data to help engage more effectively at
the right time. Plus, you need who else is part of influencing the
purchase. In complex deals, it can be 10-15 people who are part
of the decision making process. Social insights can help to expose
more inter-related connections inside an organization.
The dashboard must also include access to social data from places
like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Salespeople need to be able to
quickly walk in the digital footprint of their prospects and customers.
Who are people connecting with, what groups are they joining, what
do they say on Twitter, who do they follow, what do they share about
themselves, what do they care about? We don’t sell B2B or B2C, we
sell P2P—person to person.
Why are social selling and social insights
important to an overall sales strategy, and what
are the top ways reps can tap into these?
Buyers expect sellers to know about their business. Granted, they
can’t know everything, but the days of showing up and asking a
busy executive to explain what keeps them up at night are over.
Salespeople need to do the upfront homework to demonstrate
that they are not there just to sell, but to add value to the prospect’s
business.
Sellers need business intelligence that helps them learn quickly
about potential issues or challenges that a prospect or customer
is facing in their business. Selling today isn’t about the onesided
presentation pitching products and services. Buyers want
salespeople to educate them about what they don’t know. They
want help solving problems they cannot solve on their own. As
noted earlier, sellers must think like marketers. Their job is to
proactively seek out sales opportunities, but at the same time, they
need to attract prospects to them. That’s where social media plays a
role in selling. Well-crafted social profiles are the foundation.
Top ways to tap into a Social Selling strategy:
• Follow prospects, customers and influencers—monitor and pay
attention to what they talk about.
• Share content that is educational and relevant—not marketing
slicks.
• Participate in group discussions. Add to the conversation by
sharing unique points of view based on personal business
experience.
• Connect people to each other and cultivate referrals. A referral
network is one of the most powerful ways to increase sales
opportunities.
Barbara Giamanco (continued)
38. 38
Why is sales productivity a key issue today?
In a nutshell, the more your sales team is able to focus on the right
activities, the faster they will identify more qualified opportunities
and move them through the pipeline to close. Activities doesn’t just
mean actions. It means doing the actions the right way. For example,
prospecting doesn’t just mean cold calling. It means calling within
a defined micro-segment at the appropriate level with a targeted
message and an effective follow-up strategy. Those prospecting
actions will garner better qualified opportunities.
Has the buyer process replaced the sales funnel?
No, they work in tandem. As a sales person, it’s critical to
recognize that your prospects are going through a buying process
simultaneously to your sales process. Companies must align
their lead generation and sales processes with the clients’ buying
process. When they do this, companies and their sales teams will
be communicating in the manner that will guide prospects through
each stage of their buying decision. However, you can’t abandon
your sales process because there are critical steps that must be met
and information that must be provided to ensure the best odds
of winning.
What are the most important elements of a
sales story, and how can effective storytelling
accelerate prospect movement through the
buying cycle?
Stories are memorable. That’s what makes them so effective. A
prospect may not remember the speeds and feeds, but he or she will
remember that your company helped The Big Cheese cut overhead
by 18% and solved the downtime issue that seemed unsolvable.
The most successful sales stories have main characters and
circumstances that your prospect can relate to directly: Who— are
he and his company just like me and mine? What—is that a situation
I’m facing? Can I really get those same results? How – did he solve
it using resources I can access, too? Why—did he decide to address
the issue now, and with you? The more you can bring the story to
life, the better it will resonate.
Throughout the buying cycle, your stories will evolve. In prospecting,
it’s short and sweet: for example, the Big Cheese above. In the
Interest phase, you will get into all the gory details of the pain and
frustration the hero was experiencing, then share the happy ending.
In Desire, you’ll share exactly how the hero made his decision and
implemented. You can use one story and expand on it throughout
the sales process, referring back to it; or you may have different
stories. People love stories. Definitely use them to your advantage.
What new processes and technologies must
sales harness to succeed in today’s era of the
empowered buyer?
Marketing automation. A wealth of data is held within your
marketing automation system and while you expect (and hope)
that whoever is responsible for executing your lead generation and
marketing will have a fabulous lead scoring system that passes leads,
we find that isn’t the case just yet. So, as a sales rep you can cold call,
or you can master your marketing automation system and mine it
for warm prospects to call. You’ll see what prospects have clicked on,
downloaded, viewed and attended—and you’ll instantly know where
their interests lie and what type of knowledge they have before you
ever contact them.
What are the top three pieces of advice you can
share with aspiring sales leaders?
1. 1Learn. Sales isn’t the same as it was even five years ago. It
won’t be the same in five years. The technology changes. Your
customers change. Keep learning.
2. Retain your integrity. Today, the biggest mantra I have is the
importance of inspiring trust in prospects to distinguish yourself
from the competition. If a client is going to entrust their IT with
you, now the critical artery of a company’s business, they have to
trust you.
3. Strive for excellence. It’s a fast-paced world and many people
overlook the mistakes. Think what a differentiator it is if you don’t
make them.
How important are social selling and social
insights to an overall sales strategy and why?
Very important. Before you hire a new employee, check out their
social presence. Customers do the same by checking on sales reps
selling to them and the companies those reps work for. You need to
have a social presence and leverage it to learn just as much about
your prospects. For your sales strategy, you can identify the best
message and the best communication vehicle, uncover referrals…
the list goes on. And when prospects “go dark” on you, social selling
can bring them back. Let me say, we won’t even interview a sales rep
who doesn’t have an active, professional, engaging social presence.
Kendra Lee
Insights From The Experts:
Founder, KLA Group
Best-selling author, Selling Against the Goal: How Corporate
Sales Professionals Generate the Leads they Need
@KendraLeeKLA
39. 39
Who are the top 5 sales leaders you admire the
most and why?
1. My first IBM Sales Director who taught me how to grow and lead
other salespeople with integrity and passion.
2. A company president in Utah who watches the numbers like a
hawk but is leading the sales team into international markets with
enthusiasm and commitment to each individual.
3. A Global Marketing Director based in Toronto who has identified
a growth path that starts college hires in a sales job they can
be successful at immediately, then grows them to successful,
confident, performing outside sales reps within 24 months.
4. A VP of Sales in FL who despite a lean hiring market attracts and
retains top caliber sales people who want to work for him because
of his support in their mutual success.
Great sales leaders are all around us. They don’t have to be
household names. Just look for the people who are guiding their
staff to top performance, their companies to new markets, and their
customers to success.
What are the top 3-5 ways marketing can do a
better job of supporting sales?
1. Take the time to nurture prospects.
2. Educate sales on the campaigns they are running: the target
market, the persona, the key messaging and content. If sales is
aware, their follow-up can be more precise. Their conversations
will be more impactful and prospects will want to work with them.
3. Implement lead scoring to identify the best odds leads for
salespeople to pursue. Access rates, win rates and productivity will
improve.
How important is content and thought leadership
in the sales process?
Critical. It’s what nurtures prospects along through their buying
cycle. It generates awareness in the market. It builds and supports
your brand. For salespeople, thought leadership opens doors and
wins sales.
Kendra Lee (continued)
40. 40
What are three top pieces of advice you can share
with aspiring sales leaders?
Sales executives are under intense pressure to meet their numbers
—without adding headcount. Plus, buyers expect more today.
Successful salespeople need to be fountains of knowledge,
technology savvy and leveraging new skills.
In light of the fact that multi-tasking is a sales
productivity killer, how can reps get away from
this bad habit?
The first step is awareness. You won’t change until you know that:
• It takes 20-40% longer to learn new things when you’re
multitasking.
• Or that constantly emailing/texting while you work reduces IQ by
5 points for women and 15 points for men.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Has the buyer process replaced the sales funnel?
If so, what are the implications for sales reps and
leaders?
Slowly, but surely it is. Changing the focus to the buyer alters the
entire conversation between sales reps and sales managers: Where
are they in the buying process? What will it take to capture their
attention? How can we help them recognize the value of making a
change? What do they need to know to select us?
What are your top tips for improving sales
productivity?
1. Monotask. Period. It’s the number one thing to do.
2. Clump similar tasks together.
3. Move. Your brain thinks better when more oxygen is flowing.
4. Sleep 8+ hours/night. The research is astounding.
What are your suggestions for truly aligning sales
and marketing around the empowered buyer?
Shared goals. Frequent conversations. Constant testing.
What new processes and technologies must
sales harness to succeed in today’s era of the
empowered buyer?
Today’s modern seller needs to be proficient leveraging:
• Social media (LinkedIn, forums, Twitter)
• CRM systems
• Virtual meetings
• Sales intelligence tools
• Personal productivity tools.
If you could see any information about your
leads, contacts, and accounts in your sales
dashboard, what would that be?
Their social profile (LinkedIn, Twitter, other), org charts, connections
to my company, as well as any digital interactions with my website
and/or content.
Why are social selling and social insights
important to an overall sales strategy?
They provide you with the context needed to craft good messaging,
initiate intelligent conversations and plan effective meetings that are
highly relevant to your potential buyer.
Insights From The Experts:
Sales Strategist, Author of AGILE SELLING and SNAP SELLING
@jillkonrath
Jill Konrath